CHAPTER XXXIV

THE EMPIRE 1907-1914

When the news was first announced that an end was to come to Mlle. Adeline Génée’s ten years’ reign at the Empire and that the famous dancer was seeking, if not new worlds to conquer, at least to conquer what was once always spoken of as “The ‘New’ World,” many who had followed the progress of Ballet in London must have wondered where anyone could hope to find a successor to her throne, and who would have the courage to accept an offer thereof.

But London theatrical managers are not lacking in resource, or English girls in courage; and it was with real pleasure that we heard that so worthy a successor had been found as that graceful and essentially English dancer, Miss Topsy Sinden, who had already been associated with the Empire as a child some years before.

Of Mlle. Génée’s triumph in “The Belle of the Ball,” I have already spoken. Shortly after, the production underwent a change, and the fact that the new version was still in the bill on the following June 1st, proves the popularity of the production and of the Empire’s choice of Miss Sinden as _première danseuse_. Her success was the more interesting in that in temperament and in methods she was entirely different from the famous Danish dancer. A typical English girl, with all the charm of looks and manner implied thereby, she had studied not so much the purely traditional French or Italian school of ballet-dancing--though she had, of course, acquired that too--but the English school; of which the late Miss Kate Vaughan was, in her time, the finest exponent, and of which Miss Sylvia Grey, Miss Phyllis Broughton, the late Miss Katie Seymour, Miss Letty Lind, Miss Alice Lethbridge, and Miss Mabel Love, may be taken as leading representatives during the past twenty years.

Miss Sinden had had long and invaluable stage experience before becoming _première danseuse_ at the Empire; had appeared in pantomime at Covent Garden, Drury Lane, at the old “Brit,” and at Liverpool and elsewhere; had “done” the Halls; had appeared at the Haymarket under Sir H. Beerbohm Tree’s management; had appeared at the Gaiety in “Cinderella Up-to-Date,” “In Town,” “Don Juan,” “The Gaiety Girl,” and “The Shop Girl”; at Daly’s in “The Greek Slave,” in “The Country Girl,” and other productions; and always she won fresh distinction as one of the most vivacious, _piquante_, graceful and finished English dancers the London stage has ever known.

Her appearance in “The Belle of the Ball” was marked by the most cordial welcome from the Press and the public, and one of the first greetings she received on her return to the Empire was a telegram from Brighton which ran as follows: “My good wishes, and I hope you will do yourself justice. You are one of the best dancers I know.--Adeline Génée.” That Miss Sinden _did_ do herself justice was seen in the enthusiastic cheers and demands for _encores_ which greeted her at the close of her scenes on that “big night” of her return to the Empire stage.

“The Belle of the Ball” gave place to a revival of “Coppélia” and--the return of Mlle. Adeline Génée. Many as her triumphs had been during her ten years’ unbroken reign, that Wednesday night, June 10th, 1908, must be recorded in Mlle. Génée’s memory in letters of gold, for even she can never have seen such a house, so crammed from floor to ceiling with a distinguished audience, including King George (then Prince of Wales), and been welcomed with such thunderous cheering and applause as greeted her on her first appearance through the little brown door of Swanilda’s balconied house, when she floated down the stairs to the centre of the stage, so lightly indeed that she seemed almost to flutter before the storm of enthusiasm which welcomed her return. And how she danced! Only her peer among poets could describe it, and then he would probably feel as Thackeray felt when endeavouring to do justice to Taglioni in “Sylphide!”

For some seasons past we have had the Russian ballet as a standing dish, over which various epicures have gloated as if no other fare had ever been. But it is interesting to note that the first of “all the Russias” was Mlle. Lydia Kyasht, who made her London _début_ at the Empire, in some dances with M. Adolph Bolm, on August 17th, 1908. For the present, and to preserve historical order, let the fact be merely recorded, leaving further reference thereto until the time it becomes necessary to chronicle the handsome Russian dancer’s later successes.

On September 7th of that same year came the production of one of the most perfect gems yet seen in the historic gallery of Ballet, namely, “The Dryad,” a pastoral fantasy in two tableaux, by that brilliant composer, Miss Dora Bright. From time to time, in such productions as “The Milliner Duchess,” “Coppélia,” and “The Débutante,” we had had an opportunity of realising something of Mlle. Génée’s gifts as an actress apart from her supremacy as a dancer, but it was mainly as a dancer, surrounded by dancers, that we have seen her. Now, however, we were to have a conclusive revelation of the fact that had Mlle. Génée not elected to become a great dancer she could have achieved distinction as an actress. The story, of which she was the heroine, gave her an opportunity of proving that; and with herself in the title-_rôle_, that artistic singer, Mr. Gordon Cleather, as a shepherd, and with the support of wonderfully expressive and beautifully orchestrated _mimodrame_ music, the sister arts of dance, song, mime, and music, were brought together to give us a balanced harmony of lovely and memorable impressions.

The fantasy told how a certain Dryad, fairest of the Wood Nymphs, subdued all mortals to her by her loveliness and the magic of her dancing, whom the implacable Aphrodite caused to be imprisoned in an oak tree, only granting her freedom to come forth once in every ten years between sunrise and sunset until she should find a mortal faithful to her during the allotted period. A shepherd, passing through the wood on the night of her freedom, sees her dancing beneath the moon, and is lured to love her and vows eternal constancy. When the dawn breaks she bids him farewell and re-enters the tree, which closes around her. After ten years have passed away, the Dryad comes forth again seeking to allay the longing she has kindled, but her lover had not been constant, and the wood is empty. She dances through the night, deluding herself with hope until the hour of her doom returns and she is compelled to re-enter the tree.

The Dryad, afire with joy at being released from the imprisoning tree, and discovering the beauty of the sunlit, flower-strewn forest glade; joyous in her love of the handsome shepherd and his love returned; her sorrow at parting to return to the tree; her deeper joy on her renewed release; her alternating hope and fear as the concluding moment of the ten-year tryst draws nigh; her eager search for her lover; the shuddering tremors of doubt as she finds him not; her triumphant happiness as she hears his voice; the heart-wringing suspense, and then the overwhelming despair, as she finds he has forgotten her for another love and passes on his way, leaving her solitary and doomed to be imprisoned yet again within the tree, desolate amid autumnal desolation; these, and a thousand more _nuances_, expressive of poetic emotion, were conveyed with a sureness, a sensitiveness, a depth of instinctive dramatic genius that astonished, delighted and enthralled.

So great was the success of “The Dryad” that Mlle. Génée’s engagement was extended, but the strain of appearing in both “Coppélia” and Miss Bright’s exquisite fantasy proving too considerable, the famous dancer reserved her strength for her final appearance in the latter, while Mlle. Lydia Kyasht, then comparatively a new-comer to the Empire audiences, took up the part of “Swanilda,” in Delibes’ masterpiece with considerable success.

Ere departing for a forty weeks’ tour of America, Mlle. Génée gave a farewell “professional” _matinée_ at the Empire, at which everyone of note in “_the_ profession” was present, and gave her the same enthusiastic appreciation as had always been accorded by the lay public.

Following Mlle. Génée’s departure for America, and Mlle. Kyasht’s appearance in “Coppélia,” came the production on October 19th, 1908, of a ballet in five scenes by Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis, entitled “A Day in Paris,” produced by Mr. Fred Farren, with music by Mr. Cuthbert Clarke, the entire production being designed and supervised by Mr. C. Wilhelm, who was at his happiest in invention and control of colour in the prismatic beauty of the final tableau of the Artists’ Ball.

On the occasion of her previous appearance Mlle. Kyasht’s name had been printed in the programme as Mlle. Lydia Kyaksht, and I remember well the humorous dismay the late Mr. H. J. Hitchins expressed to me as he asked: “How _can_ one pronounce a name like that?” and the eagerness with which he welcomed the suggestion that it would be easier if the second “k” were omitted. Kyasht it became, and it is as Mlle. Kyasht that we shall always remember the handsome dancer who was first of the Russians to win a following in London. She had, of course, received her training at the Imperial Theatre, Petrograd, to which she had been attached some time, appearing there for some eight months each year, and at Monte Carlo and other fashionable centres for the remaining months, before she made her London _début_. She has little of that vehemence and abandon which characterises so many of the modern Russian school, but she has _au fond_ the same technique, a finely formed and balanced figure, and personal beauty, and her first appearances with that fine dancer, M. Adolf Bolm, in national dances and _pas de ballet_ evoked very cordial admiration.

“A Day in Paris” was notable not only for the appearance of the new Russian _première_ in a couple of _pas seuls_ and an extremely charming _Danse Russe_, but for the brilliant acting and step-dancing of Mr. Fred Farren, who as a Montmartre student freakishly officiating as “a man from Cook’s” to a party of tourists, proved himself a born comedian; while in association with that lithe and graceful dancer, Miss Beatrice Collier, his _Danse des Apaches_--a dance without the charm of beauty but undeniably clever--was one of the “sensations” of the production, so much so that the dancers became in much request for entertaining at social functions that season, as Tango performers have been since. Another member of the company, who, though but a child, achieved a marked success, was Miss Phyllis Bedells, who did some wonderful toe-dancing with, and without, a skipping rope. The ballet was one of the liveliest and “jolliest” of many such topical and essentially “modern” entertainments at the Empire, and it ran from October 1908, well into the next summer.

Yet once again Mlle. Adeline Génée returned to the scene of her former triumphs to achieve one more, this time in the famous _ballet-divertissement_ from the third act of Meyerbeer’s opera, “Roberto il Diavolo,” which was produced by her uncle, M. Alexandre Génée, on July 3rd, 1909, the _mise en scène_ and costumes being designed and supervised by Mr. C. Wilhelm. Once more we had an opportunity of enjoying a perfect representation of one of the classics of Ballet, in which Mlle. Adeline Génée appeared as the Spirit of Elena the wicked abbess, who, with the spectres of the dead and buried nuns, haunts a ruined Sicilian Convent. It was a fine and _spirituelle_ performance, and a fitting crown to what we may perhaps be allowed to call Mlle. Génée’s Imperial career.

This was followed on October 9th, 1909, by “Round the World,” a new dramatic ballet in six scenes, by Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis and Mr. C. Wilhelm, the entire production being designed and supervised by the latter, and the dances arranged by Mr. Fred Farren, who himself played the part of a resourceful chauffeur, while Mlle. Lydia Kyasht impersonated the lovely heroine, Natalia, a Russian gipsy girl, and Miss Phyllis Bedells her younger brother, Dmitri. The story concerned the winning of a wager by the hero, a Captain Jack Beresford, (Mr. Noel Fleming), who has to circle the world in a month; and the course of his adventures took us from the grounds of the Monaco Club to the Place Krasnaia, Moscow, on the occasion of a wonderfully realised national fête, where he rescues Natalia and her brother from Tzabor, a brutal proprietor of a troupe of gipsy dancers. The third scene was on the Siberian railway; the fourth a lovely scene at Tokio, in the Garden of Ten Thousand Joys, where the hero is nearly poisoned; the fifth, ’Frisco, in “One-eyed Jack’s” saloon, with a capital _Duo Mexicain_ for Mr. Fred Farren and pretty Miss Unity More; the sixth and last scene being laid in the foyer of the Empire Theatre. The production was a sort of cinema-ballet in the variety of its scenes and the excitement of its story, and gave scope for a number of attractive and characteristic dances from Mlle. Kyasht, Mr. Fred Farren and Miss Phyllis Bedells. It proved so popular that it ran on into 1910, when, on March 21st of that year, it went into a second edition called “East and West.”

Mlle. Kyasht and M. Adolf Bolm, who, early in May, 1910, appeared in a “Fantaisie Chorégraphique,” a series of charming dance-idylls, produced by M. Bolm, are remarkable for that high-voltage dancing, that volcanic energy and rapidity yet grace of movement, characteristic of the Russian school, some notable exponents of which were appearing just about the same time elsewhere.

The chief dance of the suite at the Empire was one in which Mlle. Kyasht appeared as a beautiful Princess, and M. Bolm as her enamoured slave--Mlle. Kyasht all charm and poetic ecstasy, M. Bolm all fiery energy and terpsichorean miracles, now whirling madly as the wildest of Dervishes, now suddenly stopping, poised and posed like some perfect example of classic statuary. The dancers received excellent support from Miss Phyllis Bedells and Mr. Bert Ford; the mounting and costumes were novel and admirably designed; and the production generally was voted a great success.

In the following July came a delightful _ballet-divertissement_, “The Dancing Master,” by Mr. C. Wilhelm, adapted from the first scene of his earlier success, “The Débutante,” the period chosen--that of 1835--affording a delightful opportunity for a quaint and picturesque _ensemble_ of “early-Victorian” or slightly pre-Victorian character and costume. Mr. Fred Farren repeated his excellent character-study of M. Pirouette, the excitable _maître de ballet_ at the Opera-House; Mlle. Kyasht made a handsome impersonation of Mimi the _débutante_; and Miss Phyllis Bedells added to her laurels as Mlle. Lutine, the clever head pupil. On August 8th of the same year Miss Bedells took up Mlle. Kyasht’s part of Mimi during the latter’s absence on a holiday, and made a great hit as a bewitching representative of the _débutante_.

On October 10th following Mlle. Kyasht and Mr. Fred Farren appeared in another of Miss Dora Bright’s ideal little fantasies, “The Faun,” in which the former played Ginestra, a little flower-girl, and the latter appeared in the title-_rôle_ as a marble faun who comes to life when sprinkled with water from a magic fountain. The production, designed and supervised by Mr. C. Wilhelm, was enchanting in its blending of legend and mystery, with a sunny naturalism in presentation.

It was a charming idyll, and provided an excellent opportunity for clever acting by Mr. Fred Farren, who fully realised the classic and poetic idea in his representation of the Faun, while Mlle. Kyasht quite surpassed her former work in her appealing and dramatic impersonation of the bewitched Ginestra.

A considerable contrast to the classic grace of this Tuscan idyll was seen in the following month when “Ship Ahoy!” a nautical one-scene _divertissement_ by Mr. C. Wilhelm, with music by Mr. Cuthbert Clarke, was staged by Mr. Fred Farren, who also arranged the dances. It was a lively and attractive production, with plenty of fun and a dash of melodrama, the fun being contributed mainly by Mr. Fred Farren as a dandy young officer on leave, and for all his “dudism” wide-awake enough to frustrate the horrid machinations of a treacherous Ayah (originally and admirably played by Miss Beatrice Collier and later by Miss Carlotta Mossetti) and her accomplice. The young officer’s lighter moments were happily given up to entertaining the Anglo-Indian passengers on H.M.S. _Empire_ with step-dancing, the nimbleness and neatness of which only Mr. Farren can excel. Bright and charming dances were also contributed by Miss Phyllis Bedells and Miss Unity More, while Mlle. Lydia Kyasht distinguished herself as Léontine L’Etoile, a French _danseuse_; and a special word of commendation is due to the freshness of invention and novelty of effect achieved by the designer in dealing with the somewhat hackneyed stage subject of life aboard ship. The final _ensemble_, when the lady passengers improvised fancy ball costumes from the ship’s flag-lockers and danced beneath the soft glow of the swinging lanterns was a particularly novel, pretty and inspiriting picture.

Once more we had a classic ballet when, on May 18th, 1911, Delibes’ “Sylvia,” which, originally in five tableaux, was compressed by Mr. C. Wilhelm into one for production at the Empire. With its poetic mythological story and charming sylvan setting, “Sylvia”--first produced at the Paris Opera on June 14th, 1876--has always been popular on the Continent; and it is curious that London should have had to wait some twenty-five years before again seeing a ballet, selections from which had long been familiar as _entr’acte_-music for theatre orchestras. Still, it was worth waiting to see it so admirably staged.

Another contrast followed in the extremely modern and somewhat formless production, “New York,” an original ballet in two scenes, by Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis, in which seemingly every form of American eccentricity in dancing--including the “Yankee Tangle!”--was introduced. There was a dance of Bowery boys and girls; a “Temptation Rag,” by Mr. Fred Farren; a Buck Dance, an “Octette Eccentric”; a “Bill-poster’s Dance”; the aforesaid “Yankee Tangle,” and other not particularly beautiful or edifying examples, though the staging of the “Roof Garden” scene gave one a very agreeable scheme of warm crimson and rosy colour, and a picturesquely conceived and dressed episode of Pilgrim Fathers and Red Indians.

Early in the next year, a brief but graceful “Dance Episode” was staged, “The Water Nymph,” arranged by Mlle. Kyasht, who followed on September 24th with another, entitled “First Love,” in which she was supported by Mons. Alexander Volinin. This was followed on February 11th, 1913, by another fanciful ballet-idyll, “The Reaper’s Dream,” in which Mlle. Lydia Kyasht appeared as the “Spirit of the Wheatsheaf,” seen and pursued in his dream by the reaper (Miss F. Martell); while Miss Phyllis Bedells made a dazzling personage as “Sun-Ray,” flitting in and out the autumn cornfield, which formed the setting for some very pretty dances by the three ladies and the Empire _corps de ballet_.

One of the most artistic productions at the Empire in quite recent years was certainly the choral ballet, in three tableaux: “Titania,” which, adapted of course from Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” was arranged and produced by Mlle. Lydia Kyasht and by Mr. C. Wilhelm, the latter of whom was, as usual, entirely responsible for the pictorial side of the ballet. It is interesting to note that this was not the first time a Shakespeare play had been so treated. No less a person than the great Dryden had adapted “The Tempest” at a time, shortly before the Great Fire of London, when Sir William Davenant was producing “dramatic operas” at a theatre designed by Wren, the Duke’s Theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which he held under a patent granted in 1662 by Charles II. These, as an earlier historian records, were “all set off with the most expensive decorations of scenes and habits, with the best voices and dancers.”

Then, too, it was but a return to early history to give us vocal-ballet, for all the earliest ballets on the French stage were always described as “opera-ballets,” long declamatory and choral scenes being interspersed with dances. Lulli, Rameau, Mouret, Campra and Monteverde were among the composers of such ballets, many of which, musically at least, seem wonderfully fresh to-day. This, however, is but a digression. “Titania” at the Empire was a very graceful and poetic production, quite fairy-like enough, one feels, to have delighted even Shakespeare himself, with Mlle. Lydia Kyasht as a truly regal-looking Titania, Mr. Leonid Joukoff as a dignified Oberon, Miss Unity More as a nimble Puck (a part later played by Miss Ivy St. Helier), and Miss Phyllis Bedells as an enchanting “first fairy,” Philomel. On Mlle. Kyasht’s departure for America the part of Titania was taken up by Miss Phyllis Bedells, who added yet another to her growing list of artistic successes. The ballet, which was beautifully staged, gave us some enchanting pictures, one of which, the apotheosis of the Fairy Realm seen through a tangled hawthorn brake, lingers hauntingly in one’s memory.

A new edition of “The Dancing Master” was subsequently staged and was notable for some brilliant dancing by Miss Phyllis Bedells, and by Mr. Edouard Espinosa in the title-_rôle_, by whom it was produced. Mr. Espinosa, by the way, forms an interesting link with the historic past. As the son of Mons. Leon Espinosa (1825-1903), an Officier D’Académie, Mr. Edouard is heir of a great tradition, and sustains the heritage most worthily. His father was a pupil of seven of the great masters of the early nineteenth, namely, Coulon (1820), Henri (1821), Albert (1829), Perrot (1831), Coralli (1831), Taglioni (1834), and Petipa (1839), to most of whom reference has already been made, and who were themselves, variously, pupils of the previous generation--which included Vestris, Noverre, Gardel, and Dauberval--who, in turn, were tutored by Pécourt and Beauchamps in the reign of Louis-Quatorze. Mr. Edouard Espinosa himself is a fine dancer and teacher of the classic and traditional school, and is also one of the best informed on the history of the dance.

“Europe,” a topical and patriotic _divertissement_, invented, designed and produced by Mr. C. Wilhelm (who, despite his _nom de théâtre_, has an English name and is essentially English born and bred), achieved, on its first performance on September 7th, 1914, an instant success. It was worthy of the best traditions of the Empire Theatre. The choice of such a theme as the condition of Europe, just before and during the greatest war in history, might have been called into question on the score of taste, and in the hands of any but a fine artist might have easily been trivialised. The subject was treated with marked dramatic ability and poetic dignity, and the production, passing from the comparative lightness of the first scene, into the more serious note of the second, attained to a high level of art in the patriotic symbolism of the third, and offered a tableau worthy the brush of any English painter of historical subjects. Since then we have seen “The Vine,” an Arcadian dance-idyll, invented, designed and supervised by Mr. C. Wilhelm, while it was produced, and the dances were arranged, by Mr. Fred Farren. It was superbly staged and proved one of the most original, picturesque and dramatic productions ever seen at the Empire. Miss Phyllis Bedell’s impersonation of the Spirit of the Vine seemed to have in it something of Dionysiac fire and revealed her not only as an exquisite dancer, but a sensitive and temperamental actress. Miss Carlotta Mossetti, another singularly expressive and sympathetic mime, exhibited a sense of classic inspiration in her study of the young Shepherd tempted by the Vine-Spirit; excellent work also being done by Miss Connie Walter as the Shepherd’s unhappy wife, and “Little June,” a lithe and clever little dancer, as the Spirit of the Mountain Stream. The scenery, painted by Mr. R. C. McCleery; the costumes, executed by Miss Hastings, were well in keeping with the poetic character of the story, and the entire stage effect achieved formed an exquisite setting for the dancer-mimes who were to interpret the dramatic little idyll.

So runs, in brief, the chronicle of ballet at the Empire, one which, if it is somewhat attenuated in later years by the increasing emphasis of that somewhat casual type of entertainment, the “Revue,” is nevertheless quite remarkable when one remembers that of the sixty or more ballets produced at the famous house in twenty-seven years all were commercially as well as artistically successful, and that the theatre has not received State-aid, as have the continental opera-houses where Ballet has been a staple attraction.

Thoughtless folk, who know little or nothing of the hard, unremitting toil which goes to make a dancer, or of the artistic training, thought and feeling which go to make a designer or producer of ballet, often speak lightly and slightingly of a type of theatrical production in which are blended colour, form, movement and music into a balanced harmony of varied arts under the term the art of Ballet. They rank it, usually, somewhere lower than Drama or Opera. But the placing of a colour in a colour scheme requires quite as delicate a taste as the placing of a word in a sentence, or a chord in a phrase of music; the introduction of a dancer or a group needs just as critical a care as the introduction of a character in a play or opera; and the telling of the story, albeit mutely mimed, may be just as dramatic in effect as in any verbal drama. The art of Ballet is a complex and beautiful art, at its best a very beautiful; and those who are prone to dismiss it lightly as a thing that more or less occurs of itself, and is of slight account as a vehicle for the deliberate expression of beauty, should rather feel proud to think that at the Empire in London we have seen, in the course of a quarter of a century, Ballet of such artistic value as to place it among the few real art influences of nineteenth and early twentieth-century London.